Vegetation

Throughout the project I've needed a lot of vegetation seeing as it is in fact in a forest. The Missouri forest as stated before has lots of vegetation especially on the western areas. My goal was to create 4-5 variants of tree as well as 3-4 variants for the ground to have shrubs/bushes. Starting this off we have the White Oak Tree specified before, a tree that stands at 60-100ft (18-30m) which is scaled correctly in this scene. The trunk itself is around 2-3ft (0.6-0.9m) and again this is scaled to size in Speedtree. I chose to do everything to scale because my scene will be big enough and dense enough for it all to fit in perfectly. Especially seeing as all the trees I've chosen for this project will be around the same height if not significantly smaller or bigger dependent.

Sassafras, a tree found within the western province of Missouri's forest is predominantly found in the eastern side of North America is another tree that I will be adding to my scene because the overall detail on the leaf and the twin trunk that normally occurs with these trees will help me sort out my scene in terms of 'filling' therefore it will be less of a primary asset and more filler. The Sassafras like the Oak grows to around 49-66ft tall (15-20m) meaning it's a slight bit under the size of the Oak but we can make it work and distinctive enough for it to fit into the scene. These tend to grow around or near the Oak trees because of the spacious room left around the Oak from its dominant canopy. Hence why this was used in the scene.

The Green Ash Tree is a single trunk thinned tree meaning smaller trunk large canopy. They tend to grow around 50-60ft (15-19m) which for such a short trunk allows for them to grow in small gaps and then spread their canopy once fully grown. This means it can fit perfectly into my scene seeing as the smaller gaps can be filled with this tree as well as anywhere that seems 'naked' can be filled in with this tree.

The Shortleaf Pine, the final tree in my collection is the most dominant of all of the trees within the Eastern North America especially in the Missouri forests. The tree itself has a very high up canopy in comparison to the others meaning that its canopy doesn't grow properly on the bark till around 80% of the way up. This means that it can grow in mass amounts in such a small area and like said before dominating the land, meaning that this can be a massive part of my scene seeing as I need to fill out the more 'hilly' side of my scene. They tend to grow again to around 100ft (30m) which as you can tell aside from the White Oak is the tallest of the bunch, the reason I've included where I have is due to its sheer nature of taking over the land meaning it works perfectly and can easily have variations.

As for the floor vegetation we are starting off with the basics that you would see in any forest, the Fern. Ferns are a leaf like plant that dominate the floor of most dense forests that have natural stems, leaves and even sometimes connect to smaller tree roots or trunks. The reason I chose this especially is because the Missouri forest is covered in them due to the dense amount of trees. The ferns tend to grow due to spores so you'll find a lot of them lying next to each other. This again allows me to use these in excess with variations to fill out my scene. This is why I chose this as the first plant.

The next floor vegetation is the Hawthorn bush, although I didn't add the berries to the bush the leaf shape and overall shape of the bush is heavily referenced from the bush itself and drawings of it. Although my leaf has more points it's the same concept giving off the look of a Hawthorn bush. The bush grows around the ferns and along the forest floor but not in pairs or clusters but primarily by itself and growing out and expanding itself rather than relying on others to grow around it. Sometimes you'll find two or three near each other but that is because they normally stem from their main stem and landscape from their main stem.

Lastly I just gathered some images of flowers from the forest floor (unsure of the names) but I saw they grow around mossy/dirty areas and decided to add them in-between the rails where moss would grow. These last ground floor flowers/plantation were the final piece of vegetation to go into the scene. Aside from this every other piece of green will be either moss or grass. The moss itself will be a texture and the grass the same as the flowers a alpha on the floor. All of this research was necessary as it set the height boundaries of my scene as well as what grows where/where things are to be place in the scene. Without it the scene would be completely incorrect in terms of placements.

References:

Shortleaf pine:

https://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/pinech/all.html

Green Ash Tree:

https://www.arborday.org/trees/treeguide/TreeDetail.cfm?ItemID=1070

Sassafras:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sassafras_albidum

White Oak:

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/native-trees/english-oak/

Fern:

https://mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2003/03/missouri-ferns

Hawthorn bush:

https://nature.mdc.mo.gov/discover-nature/field-guide/hawthorns